In his 1961 speech, FCC chairman Newton Minow
called television nothing more than a "vast wasteland" (Jankowski and
Fuchs 1995:125).

From the end of World War II
on, America was on an unbelievable program of homogenization--fast
food, commercial air travel, the interstate highway system. And the
crown prince of homogenization was network television. --Robert
Thompson, professor of film and television at Syracuse University (DeBarros 2000:1A)

Usage I: As the ancient world once resonated with natural sounds of,
e.g., animal cries, storms, flowing waters, and whistling winds, ours blusters
with media today. Media has become a seamless electronic web for the display of
consumer products and services.

Usage II: Each day, we are occupied by media for longer periods than
we sleep. Television, e.g., occupies four hours and nine minutes of the average
American's daily routine; radio, three hours; recorded music, 36 minutes;
newspaper reading, 28 minutes; book reading, 16 minutes; magazine reading, 14
minutes; home video, seven minutes; and movies in theaters, two minutes (Harwood
1992).

Golf. "No longer can golf be considered a 'minor' TV
sport; [thanks to Tiger Woods' dominance of the game,] it is right up there with
baseball and basketball now, and second only to the behemoth of the NFL whenever
Woods plays and contends" (McCleery 2000:40).

Images and words.
Product chatter is a dominant theme in the great background noise of media.
Commercial spots, print ads, and digitally enhanced billboard designs, e.g.,
rely on a partnership forged in prehistory between a. nonverbal
images and b. words.
As the original media through which we communicated about our bone, stone, and
shell implements, nonverbal images and words (which synergistically reinforce
each other) are still the most powerful venue for selling products of vinyl, silicon, and steel.
(N.B.: And products made of grain, as well. Fewer
Americans scoop generic oats from a barrel, e.g., than buy pre-packaged cereals
from Quaker. Oats are merely oats, but Quaker Oats are "100%
Natural.") Despite the power of words, that our PCs are increasingly graphics-,
video-, and icon-oriented is a sign Nonverbal
World is here to stay. Magazines. "[Alison] Field's
study, in Pediatrics, is believed to be the first to go directly to
adolescent girls--548 in grades 5 through 12--to find out how much magazines
influence their body images. "About seven in 10 say magazine pictures influence
their ideas of the perfect body shape, and nearly half report wanting to lose
weight because of a magazine picture" (USA Today, March 2, 1999, D1; see
BODY
DYSMORPHIC DISORDER).

Media. 1. According to a
Spokesman-Review article about Mike and Sarah Aho, and their Spokane,
Washington family's experience beginning a life without TV: "The Ahos noted an
unexpected bonus: Because the kids don't see many commercials, they have
incredibly short Christmas lists" (White 2000:F8). 2. Regarding the
Amazon Indians of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, Brazil (according to Orlando Jose de
Oliveira, president of the Indigenous People's Federation): "When Indians
started getting television, they stopped working and only worried about getting
money for diesel fuel to run the generators so they could watch soap operas"
(Astor 2001:A3).

Observation.
Fashion statements are shaped by isopraxic ads and commercials, in which
colorful images combine with jingles, rhymes, and catchy words.

TV I. Invented in 1924, television is catching on for Homo
sapiens faster than fire caught on a million years ago for H.
erectus. In 1991, e.g., 13% of all human beings lived in one of the world's
650 million TV households (Kidron and Segal 1991). That we automatically turn
our heads and eyes toward a TV commercial's percussive, sudden noises is due to
an inborn, auditory reflex located in the amphibian
brain. TV advertisers rely on this midbrain response for us to pay
attention to commercials. TV ads circumvent the FCC's rules for volume by making
every sound in a commercial approach the allowable maximum, a modification known
as "volume compression" (Feldman 1989:82).

TV
IV. Watching television is the activity Americans say they look forward to
most each day (Conn and Silverman 1991:95). The average American spends four
hours a day viewing television programming (Cole 1981:184).

TV V.
Foods most often mentioned or consumed on prime-time shows are alcohol, coffee,
and soft drinks (Anonymous 1993C).

E-Commentary: "I am a student
at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. I am currently
researching nonverbal communication through commercials. I was wondering if you
could lead me to some sources on the subject. Anything you could come up with
will be greatly appreciated." --J.S. (3/26/00 11:09:29 AM Pacific Standard
Time)

E-Commentary: "I could really
use your help in a presentation I'm doing for a group of client news anchors and
reporters. One recurring problem we have with the performance of anyone who
reads copy for a living is that vocal emphasis is frequently misplaced.
Sometimes, they try to place emphasis or stress on too many words, and it can
make them sound very artificial and somewhat mechanical. I was wondering if you
knew of any research out there regarding vocal emphasis. I know there's been a
lot done recently because of efforts to replicate the human voice and better
understand it in speech recognition software and the like. You were the first
place I thought to check." L.G., Senior Communications Consultant, Frank N.
Magid Associates (8/11/00 1:02:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time)Neuro-notes I. By using pictures and words, media engages both
the right and left sides (i.e., hemispheres) of the cerebral neocortex (see HUMAN
BRAIN). The right cortex (of right-handed individuals) communicates with
modules of the older mammalian brain. With its flicker and shifting scenes, TV
engages modules of the amphibian brain as well.